Anthropology

Anthropology

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Photo of an old rhesus macaque putting something on her mouth. She sits on what looks like a beach or bare ground. Vegetation is behind her.

It’s not just us: Other animals change their social habits in old age

In patterns that may sound familiar, long-term studies reveal what elderly deer, sheep and macaques are up to in their twilight years

Drawing of a man with his back to us, hand scratching his head, looking at a convoluted map of lines and landmarks

Society

Why do some people always get lost?

Research suggests that experience may matter more than innate ability when it comes to a sense of direction

An illustration of ancient people speaking.

Society

A new look at our linguistic roots

Linguists and archaeologists have argued for decades about where, and when, the first Indo-European languages were spoken, and what kind of lives those first speakers led. A controversial new analytic technique offers a fresh answer.

Conceptual illustration shows a person speaking words that appear as aspects of the natural world, like plants and animals.

Society

Indigenous languages are founts of environmental knowledge

Peoples who live close to nature have a rich lore of plants, animals and landscapes embedded in their mother tongues — which may hold vital clues to protecting biodiversity

Image shows Neanderthal and human child, face to face.

Society

Neanderthals: More knowable now than ever

They have held our fascination ever since we first identified their remains. Today, thanks to new artifacts and technologies, findings about our closest relatives are coming thick and fast.

Photograph of a lakeshore fringed with trees as the sun sets, with lights gleaming out from a few houses.

Food & Environment

Leaning into Indigenous knowledge on climate change

Native peoples attuned to the natural world have long collected detailed environmental information. Now scientists are cataloging these observations and learning how they’re affecting Indigenous communities globally.

Five people working together amid a set of stylized gears, some in the shape of flower petals.

Society

The secrets of cooperation

Most people care what others think of them. In many situations, that can be leveraged for the common good.

Hunter-gatherer women and children walk through a grassy African savanna.

Food & Environment

Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet. It had carbs.

There is no one prehistoric meal plan. A modern hunter-gatherer group known as the Hadza has taught researchers surprising things about the highly variable menu consumed by humans past.

Three people with small backpacks walk through the desert along the base of a wall topped with razor wire.

Society

An archaeological look at modern refugees

The techniques of archaeology, usually used to study the past, also illuminate the experiences of today’s displaced people

Collage with photographs, left to right, of three young boys, a father lying on his back outdoors with a young girl smiling down at him, and a man and a young woman standing next to each other. Overlaid on the photos is a bar graph showing the planet’s warming trend.

Food & Environment

A lifetime of climate change

Researcher Arun Agrawal has lived three decades on either side of a watershed: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed 30 years ago this June. His 60 years are a window into how far we have come, and how far there is to go.

Society

The awake ape: Why people sleep less than their primate relatives

Ancient humans may have evolved to slumber efficiently — and in a crowd

A grey-haired man wearing a beret whistles through his fingers, with mountains in the background.

The Mind

Speaking in whistles

Dozens of traditional cultures use a whistled form of their native language for long-distance communication. You could, too.

Photo shows vessels that have been restored from fragments found in the Libyan Sahara thought to be more than 6,000 years old.

Society

What did ancient people eat? Scientists find new clues in old pottery

Remnants of molecules and microbes in shards of cooking pots help researchers reconstruct prehistoric cuisines. On the menu: stews, cheese and fermented drinks.

An impressionist painting showing a father crouched down, with arms outstretched, as a toddler attempts to walk toward him.

Living World

Evolution of the dad

Most male mammals have little or nothing to do with their kids. Why is our own species different?

A scene from a street market in Lagos, Nigeria, the largest city in Africa. Several stalls selling produce are shown, as well as vendors and shoppers.

Society

The fragile state of contact languages

These linguistic mash-ups are at high risk of extinction. The race to save them is a matter of time, with more at stake than words.

A topographic map with lines and shades of green, yellow and brown to indicate elevation. Large structures and smaller walls and bumps are visible.

Society

Archaeology of the 99%

The vast majority of people in antiquity were too poor to leave many artifacts behind. But archaeologists have learned how to look beyond the temples and palaces.